Few graduates in England's class of 2002

By Paul Ackford

9:00PM BST 06 Apr 2002

AND SO another campaign ends with a whimper. Whatever England do against Italy today, and given that they have scored 139 points in their last two meetings with the Azzurri they could do plenty, their Six Nations season must be judged mediocre. It was the pesky French wot did it, derailing the chariot clinically and comprehensively on an afternoon of high emotion in Paris.

Tough to rubbish England on the back of one diffident outing when the coaches of Wales and Scotland, not to mention Italy, would kill for a fraction of England's success rate? Not a bit of it. How can England contemplate challenging the best on the other side of the world when they can't see off the upstarts in their own playground?

England's classroom of coaches could argue with some justification that progress has been made and that France was an unfortunate blip. They could point out that their men have (as the table shows) forced more turnovers; won a greater percentage of line-outs and scrummages; made more tackles, more breaks and more yardage; carried the ball further and conceded fewer penalties and free-kicks than last season. Only in the categories of tries scored and defenders beaten is there evidence of any dip in effectiveness.

Yet the perception persists that England have not moved on substantially, that they are idling in neutral rather than gearing up for a World Cup 18 months away because what the figures do not show is just how crap the opposition were. The Six Nations is turning into a Mickey Mouse competition. Remove England and France, acknowledge Ireland for the two thirds of a team they have managed to cobble together, and the rest are dire. Wales are in serious decline and picking up speed, Scotland are still five players short of competitiveness and, as for Italy . . . they last won a Six Nations match 13 games ago. Enough said.

The picture gets bleaker when you look at England in isolation and evaluate them by their own high standards. Jason Robinson and Will Greenwood apart, which England players have really kicked on this tournament? Jonny Wilkinson continues to astound, Neil Back, Graham Rowntree and Richard Hill have all had solid championships and Ben Cohen has got his career back on track. But the rest have been disappointing.

And there's the rub. England need players to come through and challenge the old guard and there has been little sign of that happening. Clive Woodward stuck Martin Johnson on the bench for today's mismatch so he could get another look at the second row pairing of Ben Kay and Danny Grewcock. He need not have bothered. Kay is an athletic lock, good in the line-out and lively around the pitch, but he is not the warrior that Johnson is. Nor is Joe Worsley, slung out of the squad the moment his club colleague, Lawrence Dallaglio, stitched 80 decent minutes of rugby together.

Worsley and Kay went missing in action against France and that game is England's only relevant yardstick when assessing their preparedness for next year's World Cup. Woodward might have given Johnson a metaphorical kick up the backside by leaving him out but it can not have been anything more than that. If Woodward seriously thinks Kay is a better option than the Lions' captain now or at any time over the next two years then he has lost it completely.

The same doubts hang over Mike Tindall and Steve Thompson, both tipped for future stardom and both with debilitating faults. Tindall has yet to convince me he is anything more than a banger in the centre who, when he came up against an equally physical French midfield, failed to punch his weight. Thompson is discovering that bulk is not enough on its own in the international arena. Even Lewis Moody, another of whom much is expected, is finding the transition from club to country taxing, especially in the video age where every foible is highlighted, worked on and then countered.

No such excuses for Austin Healey and Phil Vickery. Whereas Moody, Thompson and Kay are in the early stages of their international careers and deserving of a little slack, Healey and Vickery are Lions Test veterans. Vickery, more sickly calf than raging bull, cannot seem to string two consecutive games together without pulling a fetlock, raising serious doubts about his ability to last a World Cup.

And if the concern with Vickery is that he has not played regularly enough to complete his education in the arcane arts of the front row, the worry with Healey is that he is all played out. Healey has had a poor international season by his standards. The vision is there but the doability is not. That may be down to staleness but there is also a chance that Healey is being harmed by that which he hates most. His reputation for versatility. Unless he gets a run in one position - and wing is his best bet with Wilkinson wedded to the No 10 shirt - Healey may be condemned to spend the rest of his career as Polyfilla.

So, a season which started solidly at Murrayfield and which should end with a flourish in Rome today has been hijacked along the way. The new wave have still to answer all the questions while fresh ones are bubbling up over one or two of the seasoned men. Kyran Bracken, after a blistering spell, is stalling slightly, Dan Luger continues to swing from sublime to ridiculous, no one quite knows how Mike Catt will return following his shoulder injury, Martin Corry remains on the crest of his personal trough and a fit Martin Johnson, desperate for action, watches from the sidelines.